Chapter 461 Speaking Frankly

Following the advice of the Diviner and Lu Chan, to avoid Liu Shuying seeing Ma Zao, I arranged for Ma Zao to go to Xianshui City first. After Liu Shuying arrived, considering the historical awareness that a senior Great Impermanence should have, I did not bring him into the mansion, but found a place outside to talk.

We sat down at a newly opened café outside the Luoshan headquarters. From what I understand, people in Luoshan mostly drink tea; coffee is a relatively foreign import. However, as Luoshan absorbs modern culture, some Western fast-food restaurants and cafés have quietly opened around the headquarters, and this is one of them. Compared to the traditional, elegant atmosphere, I actually prefer this youthful space. Plus, it's close to the residence.

I guess it wasn't just me; Liu Shuying also didn't want to attract attention, so the shop assistants and customers around her chatted as if they didn't recognize Da Wuchang. The shop assistant who asked us to take our order also treated us like any other customer without any difference.

Not long after, the staff brought two steaming cups of coffee to us.

I carefully observed the shadows of the willow trees.

This very person, known as the "Prophet," predicted the existence of the end of the world.

“I’ve already heard that you’re here to discuss the Yin and Yang of the Mountain,” I said. “So, what exactly do you want to discuss about the Yin and Yang of the Mountain?”

Liu Shuying corrected: "To be precise, it's not just about the two aspects of the mountain, but also includes the Lord of Peach Blossom Village. And in the following discussion, the Lord of Peach Blossom Village is the character we actually need to face."

"—'We'?" I countered.

“Yes,” Liu Shuying replied.

"What do you want to do to the Lord of Peach Blossom Village?" I asked this question first.

"To put it bluntly, I want to kill Shan Liangyi, and Taoyuan Village Lord is the most likely person to be Shan Liangyi at this stage." Liu Shuying's attitude was very direct.

This surprised me. Although I don't know if Liu Shuying is a successor of the Yin-Yang school, I'm certain he's not. A true successor of the Yin-Yang school has all their talents transformed into patterns corresponding to their power seeds. If he were a successor of the White Tiger or Azure Dragon in the present day, then his power would be the power of metal and slaughter, or the power of wood and cultivation.

Although I am not yet clear on the specific form in which the power of wood and cultivation will manifest, in my mind the person who possesses this power is most likely the Lord of Peach Blossom Village. At the same time, referring to the historical data that I asked Lu Chan to collect before, the descendants of the Azure Dragon have never shown any attributes related to "foresight". On the other hand, Liu Shuying not only has foresight, but also seems to be a versatile and unpredictable person.

As for what exactly those talents were, that's unclear. Information related to willow shadows is extremely difficult to collect.

The reason why the old Fist God killed Yama Ryougi in the past, and why I and the Water Master Genbu are now enemies of Yama Ryougi, is all because of the irreconcilable conflict between us and Yama Ryougi—namely, the power seed within us that Yama Ryougi will inevitably seize sooner or later. Liu Shuying doesn't seem like us; why would he harbor murderous intent towards Yama Ryougi?

"I'm sorry, I can't explain to you why I wanted to kill Yama Ryougi."

As if she could read my mind, Liu Shuying gave her answer first: "This is my personal privacy, and I hope you can understand. All I can say now is that my relationship with Shan Liangyi is irreconcilable. I must kill him."

“Okay, then I won’t ask any more questions,” I said. “But you should at least tell me why you wanted to talk to me about this? What does this have to do with me?”

"Let's be frank about this, Zhuang Cheng," Liu Shuying said. "I know you are the Vermilion Bird among the successors of Yin and Yang. Other Great Impermanence can understand this by analyzing the attributes of the power traces that remain in various places. On the matter of 'being irreconcilably opposed to the Yin and Yang of the mountains,' you should agree with me."

He had indeed known this beforehand.

"I admit that I am the successor of the Vermilion Bird."

I didn't intend to argue about that and quickly moved on to the next question, "So, why do you think that the Peach Blossom Village Lord is the Mountain Yin and Yang?"

"Is it because the strange man and the Seed of the Heart in the Humanity Department reminded you of the successor of Ryougi and the Seed of Power, and then you thought that the Lord of Peach Blossom Village, who is the source of the Seed of the Heart, is Ryougi himself? But in my opinion, he is more like the successor of the Azure Dragon."

"Actually, I also fought his avatar a few days ago. He used the power of lightning, and in the theory of the Four Symbols and Five Elements, lightning belongs to the power of the wood element."

“Just as you said, lightning is the power of the Azure Dragon.” Liu Shuying nodded. “Since ancient times, the dragon has been regarded as a divine beast that controls rainfall in Chinese culture, and lightning often appears at the same time as rainfall.”

"But the fact that the Lord of Peach Blossom Village can manipulate lightning does not necessarily mean that he is not a being of the Two Elements of Mountain."

I asked, "Why is that? You're not going to say that because the Yellow Dragon, which corresponds to the Earth element of the Mountain Yin-Yang theory, is also a dragon, it's only natural that it can unleash the power of lightning and thunder, right?"

“That’s one line of reasoning, but that’s not what I want to talk about.” Liu Shuying seemed to be choosing an angle to approach the topic. “Where should I begin my explanation…”

"Hmm, I've got it. Zhuang Cheng, have you ever wondered... why do two dragons, the Yellow Dragon and the Azure Dragon, appear simultaneously in the Four Symbols and Five Elements system?"

“The four divine beasts are clearly not repeated among themselves, yet the divine beast symbolizing the central earth element is a dragon, which is suspected of being a duplicate. Rather than that, wouldn't it be more aesthetically pleasing to replace the yellow dragon with another divine beast that also symbolizes the central earth element, the Qilin? Isn't that more appealing?”

“I have indeed thought about that,” I said.

"There must be something fishy about this. The Great Impermanence has been with human civilization since ancient times. Ancient Great Impermanence such as the Divination Master, Xuanming, and the Mountain Yin-Yang are all examples of this. Our mythology and culture actually reflect the traces of the early activities of the Great Impermanence to a large extent." Liu Shuying said slowly, "Although the strange world and the common world were separated by the power of the Divine Seal in the past, the power of the Divine Seal has not been doing this since the birth of humankind."

"In the mythological era, there was no distinction between the world of the supernatural and the world of common sense. Or rather, the existence of strange things was part of the common sense of people at that time, and the gods were also present with people. The theory of the Four Symbols and Five Elements is one of the knowledge summarized by mortals at that time from observing the activities of the Great Impermanence. It contains the historical imprint of the Two Principles of Mountain."

"The reason why the Yellow Dragon and Azure Dragon are repeated among the Five Divine Beasts is because they are sometimes truly 'repeated'."

Perhaps because Liu Shuying was a Da Wuchang who had only appeared out of nowhere four years ago, his tone was more in line with the perspective of a modern person, and his strange-sounding words opened up a completely new way of thinking for me.

"You mean... the Mountain Yin and Yang sometimes directly reincarnate as descendants of the Azure Dragon, taking the body of a Yellow Dragon and occupying the Azure Dragon's position?" I pondered. "That makes sense. The Wood element power possessed by the Azure Dragon's descendants can restrain the Earth element power of the Yellow Dragon. Since they are such troublesome beings, it would be better not to let them be born in the first place..."

"No, if that's the case, then wouldn't it have been better if he hadn't differentiated the Azure Dragon Seed in the first place?"

"We should change our thinking. It's not that Shan Liangyi usurped the Azure Dragon's position from the beginning, but rather that he killed the Azure Dragon's successor and stole his seed... and then impersonated the Azure Dragon's successor?"

“Exactly,” Liu Shuying said with certainty. “The Azure Dragon is sometimes referred to as the head of the Four Symbols because among the successors of the Two Elements, the Azure Dragon successor is the most likely to rebel against the Yellow Dragon.”

"And Shan Liangyi couldn't prevent the Azure Dragon successor from being born in the first place, as you said. Among the Four Symbols successors, there will inevitably be one who is his nemesis. You can understand this as the risk he has to bear in accumulating power through this evil method. Therefore, in many cases, the first person Shan Liangyi kills is the Azure Dragon successor who has not yet fully grown."

"If the Azure Dragon successor who is killed has not had time to confirm the identity of the other Yin-Yang successors, then the Mountain Yin-Yang will choose to use the Azure Dragon Seed that he has seized to disguise himself as the Azure Dragon successor - which is a piece of cake for him as the source of power."

"The purpose of doing this is to gain the trust of the other Yin-Yang successors, and to observe their growth progress closely while cultivating them. When they blossom and bear fruit, the Mountain Yin-Yang will kill them all and reclaim their power seeds."

"After this practice was repeated many times, the successors of the Yin-Yang lineage in later generations learned the dangers and no longer trusted the successors of the Azure Dragon lineage... However, that was a long, long time ago."

"As long as Shan Liangyi doesn't want future generations to know, similar records will gradually be lost. In the end, the only knowledge that will survive is the Five Divine Beasts system, which those who don't know the inside story will at most wonder about. You probably can't find similar records either. Is this the first time you've heard that Shan Liangyi might be pretending to be a descendant of the Azure Dragon? When the records are lost to this extent, Shan Liangyi might resort to the same old tricks."

"I see……"

I couldn't find fault with it, so I could only nod. Liu Shuying smiled and took a sip of her coffee.

Liu Shuying didn't explicitly state that the Two Elements of Dead Mountain was the Lord of Peach Blossom Village, but this connection made all the past clues come together. Whether the Lord of Peach Blossom Village was the Two Elements of Dead Mountain or the holder of the Azure Dragon Seed, I had always wavered between the two in the past, but now I finally had a reasoning that could consider both directions simultaneously.

However, I wasn't naive enough to believe everything he said.

Because his theory did not dispel the suspicious odor about him.

“I have a question. Since the records have been lost to the point that Shan Liangyi believes he can repeat the same trick, how do you know this secret?” I asked.

“I have my own methods,” Liu Shuying said. “You’ve probably heard that I have the power of foresight. There are some things that I can know directly without needing any channels.”

“Really? But I have a more plausible theory. In mystery stories, only the culprit knows the truth of the case from the beginning,” I said. “Even setting that aside, your own precognitive abilities are quite questionable.”

"You can predict the end times that even the most skilled diviners cannot foresee. As far as I know, the only one who can do this is Shan Liangyi, who can reincarnate into the past and future at will."

"And I also heard from the Divination Master that you lost your precognitive powers last year. Now you're telling me that you obtained information related to the Yin and Yang of the Mountain out of thin air using your precognitive powers? Isn't that a bit contradictory?"

Liu Shuying's eyes sharpened, and she placed the coffee cup on the table.

"What exactly are you trying to say?" he asked.

"Now it's your turn to speak frankly, Willow Shadow," I said bluntly. "You are Shan Liangyi, aren't you?"

(End of this chapter)